Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Entertainer and singer, best known for the theme song of the television series 'Dixon of Dark Green'.
On the island
Eight records
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
If I Had a Talking Picture of You
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
I'm Getting Sentimental Over You
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
No explicit reason given for this disc in the transcript.
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08Or, Jack, would you call yourself a musical person?
Well, I think so. Uh Roy, I like music very much indeed and I was taught to play the piano when I was a small boy. Also I was taught to play the viola. We had an orchestra at home, you know, with my brothers and sisters. … seven or eight or nine piece. It depends which of our friends came in to help us.
Presenter asks
0:42You didn't start in show business right away when you left school, did you, Jack? What did you do?
No, Roy, no, no. I I was very keen on motor cars when I was young, and uh when I left school I started work in a garage, sweeping up the floor at twopence an hour. … I [was] mad about cars, because I got on from the sweeping up the floor to pulling it to pieces and so on and so forth.
Presenter asks
2:20How did the entertainment business become part of your life?
Well, Roy, I mean, I've been entertaining in public since I was nine years of age. … I was always torn between the two, torn between motor cars and torn between singing songs. In fact, I sold a lot of cars while telling funny stories.
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
Presenter asks
4:35Which of those films do you like to remember, particularly?
Well, I I I remember three very specially, because the first one was the captive hard [The Captive Heart]. That was the first real picture I was in. … And then of course the biggest thing was the blue lamp [The Blue Lamp]. … quite a lot of people have tried to persuade me not to do that part in the Blue Lamb [Blue Lamp]. They said it's only a small part and after seventeen minutes you're going to be shot and you disappear altogether. … I said, well I want to do this very much because I have a feeling that this this policeman, P C George Dixon, is going right to the end of this film and maybe a little further, I don't know, but honestly I didn't realise how prophetic those words were when I said them.
Presenter asks
6:38Do you find you're so identified with [the part of Dixon] now that people really do believe that you're a policeman?
Oh, yes. You'll be surprised. I mean, George Dixon's pushed Jack Warner right off a map. … I was out filming the other day and a man stopped in his car and asked me the way to a certain place. Fortunately I knew where he wanted to go, but I'm quite certain he'll never know that he wasn't talking to a real copper.
Presenter asks
7:39Have you any particular ambition in show business, so far unfulfilled?
Well … I would like very much to do some more variety … but I would really like to have the thing turn full circle and be back in a West End play on the in the real theatre, you know? … That's what I'd like to do more than anything.
“I was mad about cars, because I got on from the sweeping up the floor to pulling it to pieces and so on and so forth. And I always remember one thing sticks in my mind about this. … There was one old mechanic there, he was always fond of drinking cups of tea and he always used to come and stand by me and watch me work, was I you know, I loved the job and I used to work pretty fast and he came up to me one day and he said, You know, He says, You don't want to work as hard as that, mate. It won't get you anywhere. Let's have another cup of tea.”
“I was always torn between the two, torn between motor cars and torn between singing songs. In fact, I sold a lot of cars while telling funny stories.”
“And I had struggled to get to the top of the bill. And I got there the week the war broke out, so there were only about fifteen people in the theatre every night. That's my first week at the top of the bill. I asked them all to come and sit in the front row, you know.”
“I said, well I want to do this very much because I have a feeling that this this policeman, P C George Dixon, is going right to the end of this film and maybe a little further, I don't know, but honestly I didn't realise how prophetic those words were when I said them.”
“Oh, yes. You'll be surprised. I mean, George Dixon's pushed Jack Warner right off a map.”
“If I don't say them the following week, I get letters from the kiddies saying, Please will you say that again, as my brother Willie didn't hear it, and he takes more notice of you than he does of his father, that when it becomes a responsibility, you know.”